Working from home

The best way is almost certainly the way that's open to you: your current empoyer uses you. Nothing beats ready-made assignments... but remember, they really don't have to follow through... any business or economic glitch could scotch the deal.

A Web presence will not really spread the word about you, but it can serve very well to inform prospects (whom you have talked with about possible work) of your portfolio, your resume and experience, and project management skills.

For getting the word out, nothing beats networking. All your friends and relatives should hear about your plans... and their friends... and so on.

I also follow funding news -- because companies with major infusions of cash usually have a host of product-related tasks to accomplish in a short time.

Local to you and me is the New England Tech Wire, free:

However, depressingly few companies getting money are in manufacturing or any field other than biotech/protein research or services.

But there's no reason to set up just regionally, though it certainly helps for face-to-face meetings.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers (or whatever their name today) does a Money Tree that gives you details on major funding across the States:

Plus any employment service worth its salt (like Monster.com) will let you post a resume and search for contract positions. And don't forget the organizations and the SolidWorks Job Network linked at: Enjoy... you won't get rich, but commuting 11 steps to work in the morning and 11 steps home in the evening is a joy to contemplate...

Dave G.

Steve:

Sometimes I work from home. The best way to get started is a really bad hang-over. Nothing will make you want to stay home more than that.

Second step is to put your bathrobe on. I don't know, I've got this weird thing about showing up to work naked, especially first thing in the morning.

The most important step is cracking open that first early morning beer, just to take the edge off the hangover. Much the same way those type A's drink a pot of coffee before their second cigarette break. Plus, Yuengling is cheaper than Starbucks, especially if you're just starting out and are on a budget.

It's also important to have your ergonomics figured out properly. Get the recliner facing in between the 40" flatscreen tv and your monitor. Make sure you've got extra batteries for the remote(s) and your wireless mouse/keyboard. The hardest part is getting the angle right so the ears of your bunny slippers don't block your line of sight. Of course for any business, you must start out by investing in the right equipment, so you must have a recliner with a 6-pack cooler built into the arm rest.

Customers generally ruin the experience, and must be avoided when possible, especially when you've been at this for a while and become emotionally involved in the soaps.;oP

Anyway, good luck!

matt

snipped-for-privacy@adelphia.net (Steve Pero) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

Customers? Hopefully he's not married.....because his wife could ruin it also.

Keep up the good work, Matt.

Dan

Steve

Re your question on websites / business names

Most search engines will not search for a particular name WITHIN a domain name, but

will, and is useful tool in this circumstance. It will not display domains that are "on hold", but if you try to register such a domain, you will be told at time of application.

The main thing I found when I first went on my own, was that the key to building a customer base was, for the first year or 18 months, to forget about whether my activities looked like a sustainable business proposition : the key is to make sure each customer gets EXCELLENT value, regardless of what you have to do to make that happen.

If that means chewing through the midnight oil and/or some savings in the meantime, so be it. For me, it worked to the extent I have never had to solicit work since.

(You might strike a customer whose business culture is so dysfunctional that nothing you do will satisfy them that they are getting value. That has happened to me once in the last decade, and it nearly killed me, but in the end I clung to the fact that, as well as *I* could judge, they were getting value)

Good luck

Just an observation . . . a six-pack cooler in the arm rest won't do you much good unless you also have a bedpan built-in to the chair, or else unless you have the cajones to catheterize yourself. However, having six beers might be good enough to kill the pain such that you could endure it . . . if you can "hold it" that long.

'Sporky'

matt wrote:

Looks to me like the link below has an error in it. Using IE 6.0 and the message indicates: Error Occurred While Processing Request The system has attempted to use an undefined value, which usually indicates a programming error, either in your code or some system code.

Dave G wrote:

I just tried it and got right in. You have to be logged in before hitting the link or it won't take you to it.

WT

And I can't log out and get to the thread to copy a non-logged in version -- eng-tips just logs me in automatically.

The thread is under "Corporate Survival" > "How to Improve Myself to Get Ahead in My Work", thread titled "Career Move or Not?" (thread731-83770), posted Jan. 12, 2004.

Dave G.

Hey, thanks for all of the great suggestions. I'm going to investigate this further for sure and hopefully will be able to get some work and try it PT at first. I already have one job lined up!

Thanks, great forum.... Steve P.

Steve,

I used mycorporation.com, in Massachusetts you have to pay a yearly fee. I am not certain about New Hampshire. They will do a search for company name, liability and such.

We plan to have a New England users group meeting in late April - if you develop a flyer about what your new company does we can put it next to the food table so everyone will take one.

Regards, Marie